The Short List Is Where You Make It or Miss It

Some company recruiters may not know what a short list is. Those who do, recognise it as a critical step in identifying the best candidate for a senior position in their organization.

The Short List only comes up in Retained Executive Search. The methodology in Retained is to scour the market for not only the best qualified but the best fit with the client company. ( to know more).

The result of this rigorous discovery and scrutiny – across town or across the globe — is the Short List. There may have been a Long List earlier, but the Short List is the critical moment.

This is the List that contains the names of the people that an experienced and professional agency consider the best qualified for a specific challenge and who are worthy of your review.

And why is this the key – the critical moment – in your bid to secure absolutely the best talent?

Because if that person is not on the Short List at this point, you are going to fall short of your goal. You are overwhelmingly likely to select a finalist from this list. It is very unlikely that you are going to restart the basic search because you are relying on the firm you retained to have covered ALL the bases, not just the easy ones.

Let’s look at this another way. You could do your own research. But at your paygrade you should not be looking under rocks. Or you could go the contingency search route and evaluate a flood of “available” supported by minimum documentation and reasoning.

In either case, you will be drawing up your own list of finalists, your Short List, based on less than optimum input. Compare that with how we would do it at Cornerstone International Group.

With over 250 experienced executive search consultants in 56 offices and 34 countries around the world, we have a pretty good idea where the best people are. Once we thoroughly understand your organization, your immediate needs and where you want to get to, we will also have a pretty good idea of who will be the best people to deliver your goals.

They may not be available. But we also know which of them might be interested in what you do, who you are, and what you are offering – interested enough to move.

They will be on our Short List to you – a list of maybe half a dozen exceptional achievers, women and men, tightly aligned to your briefing and goals, assessed and pre-screened.

We bring this list to you. We go over each candidate in detail. We bring in who you want to see. We make recommendations.